The Savior said: Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.

[Guest guest]

The View of God in the Gospel

At the outset of the gospel it is clear that the God of Jesus is not the creator

god of the Jews. In one of the opening scenes, Jesus finds the disciples

gathered together " in pious observance. " Literally, the Coptic says that the

disciples were " engaged in practices with respect to God. " They were sharing an

eucharistic meal, in which they were thanking God for their food. One would

expect Jesus to respect this religious act. But instead he begins to laugh. The

disciples don't see what is funny: " Why are you laughing at our prayer of

thanksgiving? We have done what is right. " Jesus replies that they don't know

what they are really doing: By giving thanks for their food, they are praising

their god—that is, not the God of Jesus. Now the disciples are befuddled:

" Master, you are … the son of our god. " No, it turns out, he is not. Jesus

responds that no one of their " generation " will know who he really is.

 

The disciples do not take kindly to this rebuke and " start getting angry and

raging and blaspheming against him in their hearts. " Jesus proceeds to upbraid

them and speaks again about " your god who is within you. " At play here are

several key themes, which repeat throughout the narrative: The disciples of

Jesus do not know who he really is; they worship a God who is not Jesus' father;

they don't understand the truth about God. Judas, the only one who truly

understands, declares that Jesus has come from " the immortal realm of Barbelo, "

that is, from the realm of the true immortal divine beings, not from the lower

realm of the creator god of the Jews.

 

This understanding of the creator god as an inferior deity is most clearly

stated in the myth that Jesus expounds privately to Judas later in the text.

According to proto-orthodox writers such as Irenaeus (I call him

" proto-orthodox " because he embraced views that at a later date would come to be

called orthodox), there is only one God and he is the one who made all that

exists, in heaven and earth. Not for this text, though. The complexities of the

myth that Jesus reveals to Judas may seem befuddling, but its gist is clear.

Even before the creator god came into being, there were enormous numbers of

other divine beings: seventy-two aeons, each with a " luminary " and each with

five firmaments of the heavens (for a total of 360 firmaments), along with

countless angels worshipping each one. Moreover, this world belongs to the realm

of " perdition " or, as the word could also be translated, " corruption. " It is not

the good creation of the one true God. Only after all the other divine entities

come into existence does the God of the Old testament—named El—come into being,

followed by his helpers, the blood-stained rebel Yaldabaoth and the fool Saklas.

These latter two created the world, and then humans.

 

When the disciples worship " their God, " it is the rebel and fool they worship,

the makers of this bloody, senseless material existence. They do not worship the

true God, the one who is above all else, who is all-knowing, all-powerful,

entirely spirit, and completely removed from this transient world of pain and

suffering created by a rebel and a fool. It is no wonder that Iranaeus found

this text so offensive. It claimed to represent the views of Jesus, yet its

views are a complete mockery of Iraneaus's most cherished beliefs.

 

The View of Christ

Throughout his text, Jesus speaks of the twelve disciples and " their God. " It is

clear that Jesus does not belong to the god of this world—one of his goals, in

fact, is to reveal the inferiority and moral turpitude of this god, before

returning to the divine realm, the perfect world of the Spirit, after leaving

his mortal body.

 

For this text, then, Jesus is not a normal human being. The first indication of

this is that he " appeared " on earth. This already suggests that he came from

another realm. And since he spends much of the gospel revealing the " secret

mysteries " about the immortal world of true divinity, the natural assumption is

that this other realm is where he originated.

 

His unique character is hinted at in the next comment about him: " Often he did

not appear to his disciples as himself, but he was found among them as a child. "

Scholars who are familiar with a range of early Christian literature will have

no trouble understanding this allusion. A number of Christian writings outside

the New Testament portray Jesus as a " docetic " being—that is, as one who looked

human only because it was an appearance (docetic comes from the Greek word

dokeo, which means to " seem " or to " appear " ). As a divine being, Jesus could

take on whatever shape he wanted. In some early Christian writings, Jesus could

appear as an old man or a child—simultaneously, to different people! (This can

be found, for example, in a noncanonical book called the Acts of John.) So too

here: Jesus did not have a real fleshy body, but could assume appearances at

will. "

 

The Gospel of Judas, pages 104-7

National Geographic, April 6, 2006

ISBN-10: 1426200420

ISBN-13: 978-1426200427

 

 

The Savior said: " Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am. "

 

" Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad. " The

Jews therefore said to Him, " You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen

Abraham? " Jesus said to them, " Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was

born, I am. " Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid

Himself, and went out of the temple. John 8:56-59

 

The most emphatic claim of Jesus to deity is the statement in His discussion

with the Jews, " Before Abraham was born, I am " (John 8:58, A.S.V.) The Jews

brought the name of Abraham, their physical and spiritual father, into the

conversation (vss. 52-53). Jesus seized upon it to lead on to His final claim in

the verse already quoted, startling the Jews by saying: " Your father Abraham

rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad " (vs. 56). When the Jews

responded with a question as to how a man as young as Jesus could have seen

Abraham, " Jesus claims eternal existence with the absolute phrase used of God. "

[Archibald Thomas Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, V, 158-59.]

Jesus did not claim mere pre-existence to Abraham, which would have been

expressed by the imperfect tense of the verb used concerning Abraham, but

eternal existence, the self-existence that belongs to God alone. (Witmer, Did

Jesus Claim to be God, Bibliotheca Sacra, January 1961, p.152-153)

 

" I am; older than Abraham's origin is my existence. As Abraham had not

pre-existed, but came into existence (by birth), ... so far as He exited before

time, as to His divine nature, without having previously come into being. "

(John, H. A. W. Meyer, John 8:58, p. 293)

 

" The words ego eimi in John 8:58 do not function as a title of Christ, but are a

statement of his eternality (and, implicitly, his deity). " (Bowman, JWs, Jesus

Christ, and the Gospel of John, p.124)

 

" Jesus' use of ego eimi constituted a claim to be eternal--to exist without ever

having experienced a beginning--in contrast to Abraham. " (Rhodes, Reasoning from

the Scriptures with the JWs; p.118)

 

" The vast majority of translators see, as do many commentators, that there is a

clear differentiation being made here between the derivative existence of

Abraham and the eternal existence of the Lord Christ. " (White, The Forgotten

Trinity, ch. 6, p.97, " I am He " )

 

" it invincibly proves his eternal pre-existence unto his incarnation " (Owen,

Christologia, p. 116, concerning John 8:58)

 

" But perhaps the greatest assertion to eternal preexistence is to be found in

Jesus' " I am " saying of John 8:58. " (Reymond, New Systematic Theology, p.231, " I

am " )

 

" Jesus also outrages his opponents by saying, " Before Abraham was, I am " (8:58).

It is not easy to see this as anything less than the language of deity, for

Jesus is affirming that he has timeless existence. " (Morris, New Testament

Theology; p.235-238 The " I Am " Sayings)

 

To the Jews, who claimed Abraham as Father, Jesus asserted, " Before Abraham Came

to be, I am " (John 8:58, literal translation). By this Jesus taught there was a

sense in which the idea of birth and beginning did not apply to Him; in Him was

eternal existence (cf. Exodus 3:14). (Vos, Can I Really Believe?; p.100)

 

Was & I am (genesqai, egw eimi). It is important to observe the distinction

between the two verbs. Abraham's life was under the conditions of time, and

therefore had a temporal beginning. Hence, Abraham came into being, or was born

(genesqai). Jesus' life was from and to eternity. Hence the formula for

absolute, timeless existence, I am (egw eimi). (Vincent's Word Studies on John

8:58.)

 

" In this context, Jesus does not merely claim to be older than Abraham. Gabriel

or any of the angels, or even the devil, could have claimed as much. Are we

really to believe that Gabriel or the devil could say, " Before Abraham came into

existence, I am " ? The truth is that this statement was a claim to be eternal, to

exist without beginning, in contrast to Abraham, who had a beginning. " (Bowman:

Why You Should Believe in the Trinity; p 100 " I Am " )

 

" It is also indicated in Jesus' bold use of a present tense verb that implies

continuing present existence when he replied to his Jewish adversaries, " Before

Abraham was, I am " (John 8:58). " (Grudem: Systematic Theology, p.169, " I am " )